In recent years, continuously growing attention has been paid to wireless local area networks (LANS) and home networking systems. Depending on the implementation, these networks can utilize several different types of transmission media, including but not limited to: wireless, coax cable, twisted pair, and power-line media.
Although these systems can utilize several different types of media, unfortunately, different transceivers are needed for communication over each different type of media. For example, one transceiver is needed for wireless communication and a second, separate transceiver is needed for wireline communication. Consequently, providing a solution that can communicate over several different types of media is very expensive in terms of silicon area and cost. Thus, there is a long-felt but unresolved need for a single transceiver solution that can communicate over different types of media.